


I Should Have Known

by yuletide_archivist



Category: MASH (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-27
Updated: 2004-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Radar ponders back on an event in Korea that affected him deeply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Should Have Known

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Blinky the Tree Frog

 

 

I Should Have Known  
by Secret Santa

As soon as he got the letter, I should have known. He was so excited, looking forward to being back home with his wife. It had been years since he'd seen her. We were all excited for him. So excited that it didn't even dawn on us until later that with him gone, Frank would be in charge.

Of everyone, I worked the closest with him, since I was the company clerk. He had become a father figure to me, in a lot of ways. I knew that I would miss him when he was gone. We made plans to visit each other when we were both home; I was looking forward to it.

I should have known.

The ability to know things in the future is something that runs in my family. It wasn't something that was spoken of often, or in mixed company. Usually it was the women in the family who inherited it. I was the first male in the family to have this gift.

I was six years old the first time I sensed that something would happen. I was playing outside while my father was working, and my father nearly ran a garden snake over with the mowing tractor. If he had hit it, the snake would have died. I couldn't bear to let that happen. As it was, I was the one who nearly died when I ran out in front of the tractor and my father almost wasn't able to stop in time.

When I was little, the things I could see were just seconds away, like the snake. It seemed though that the older I got, the farther into the future they were--like the fates of the wounded in Korea.

I should have known.

The choppers came in on an almost daily basis. They were always full of the most seriously wounded. Those who had minor injuries, those who had been stabilized, came in more slowly, on the ambulances. I would help with triage and it seemed like I could tell, sometimes, who was going to live and who was going to die. I don't know how I knew. It was a feeling I got, or maybe a look they had. At the time I was too young and naive to truly notice it, but looking back, I know it's true. A man who is dying has a look in his eyes that one doesn't need to be psychic to see.

Sometimes I helped in the operating room. I was just an extra pair of hands to get drinks for the surgeons, or extra cloths so that the nurses could wipe the doctor's faces. A few times, I got roped into playing nurse, when they were unusually short handed or extra busy. It was not my favorite thing to do, to say the least. I definitely was not cut out to be a doctor. More often than not, I ended up getting sick to my stomach and had to leave.

The day he left, we were busy, but not too busy to say goodbye to our commanding officer. Frank was chomping at the bit for him to leave, anxious to be in charge and already planning the changes that he was inevitably going to make.

All of us lined up to see him off. Hawkeye and Trapper wore their usual robes and Klinger wore something that looked like he'd taken it straight out of Carmen Miranda's closet. I don't think he cared what anyone was wearing. He was just so eager to get on that chopper and go home.

Saying goodbye was hard, harder than I expected. I felt like I was saying goodbye to my dad all over again.

I should have known.

The choppers came in that day, full, as usual, of the wounded. Everyone scrambled to their places to save the broken men. Effortlessly triaging the most serious, the 4077th ran like a well oiled machine when duty called.

I heard the telegram blipping as I rushed passed the office to get some paperwork for Father Mulcahey to fill out. I wrote down the message, my heart getting heavier with each dot and dash of the Morse code. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It couldn't have happened. Not to him. He was the closest thing to family I had in Korea, the closest thing I had to a friend.

I knew I had to be the one to convey this message to the surgeons who were busy at work. I walked right in, forgetting to put a mask on. At that point, I didn't care. I read the telegram, and I could see the shock and disbelief in the eyes of the men and women in that room.

It wasn't fair. Someone like him should have gotten home. He had so much to live for.

I left the operating room, and I walked back to his office. I sat in his chair when I got there, and immediately, I felt closer to him. I apologized to him, to his wife, to anyone I could think of.

I should have known that Henry Blake would never make it home.

 


End file.
